On Sunday, as I bought my usual raft of papers from the local newsstand, I asked the proprietor what his plans ahead of the not-yet-downgraded Hurricane Sandy were. "I live upstairs," he declared, and then, puffing up:

"I have all your storm needs. You need eggs?"

New York, in its sprawling range and diversity, does not always reflect the archetypal vision depicted by Jane Jacobs, the "intricate sidewalk ballet" of social interaction and community on small neighborhood blocks, but the exchange with my local shopkeeper, a minute's stroll away, seemed a curious reminder of the benefits of walkable urbanism.

I don't imagine all that many New Yorkers actually do live above their businesses or workplaces, but the fact is that more than 12% actually walk to work, another 1% regularly bike. If pressed, as they have been during any number of previous transport interruptions, both natural and manmade (terrorist attacks, snowstorms, transit strikes), these numbers could surely swell with contingency.

In a touch of almost uncomfortable irony, last Thursday, moderating a panel on the "transport legacy of large-scale events" (for example, the Olympics), at the annual meeting of the National Association of City Transportation Officials, I had mentioned how, ahead of the London Games, there were any number of predictions of a "perfect storm" of traffic chaos.

But what actually occurred, I suggested, was less an apocalypse than a temporary utopia of rationality: where transport demand was intelligently managed, peak travel was shifted, modes were shifted, capacity rates were high, journey times were predictable, and carbon emissions were lowered. In the face of new restraints, innovation prospered: major retailers and others came up with new nighttime and pooled delivery schemes, tightened supply chains, and more granular forecasting of consumer demand. Even the tragic death of a cyclist prompted an immediate response of driver-training and civic soul-searching. When's the last time that happened in New York?

If this was chaos, the sentiment seemed to be, can we have more of it? As the Guardian's transport columnist put it:

"The success of transport during the Olympics raises the obvious question: if it can be run well over a two-week period while the capital holds the biggest show on Earth, why can't it happen all the time?"

The London experience, I told the crowd – which included the city's commissioner of transportation – reminded me of the striking thesis of Rebecca Solnit's book, A Paradise Built in Hell: that natural disasters, despite their destruction and human toll, could be "extraordinary generative", bringing to light latent forms of community and cooperation, "a reversion to improvised, collaborative, cooperative and local society". Society, in its most dire moments, comes together, often on its own. And then, in a sort of joke at which I now wince, I said:

"I'm not suggesting the city stage natural disasters every four years to boost the civic esprit d'corps and improve its transportation networks."

Now, on Tuesday morning, the day breaks on what the Atlantic Cities called "the worst mass transit crisis in city history". In 108 years of operation, noted MTA chairman Joseph L Lhota, "it has never faced a disaster as devastating as what we experienced last night."

Tunnels are flooded, vital links severed, streets submerged.

A Verizon technician, so I read via Twitter, says:

"I worked 9/11, the blackout, Irene, and this is way worse. It's so bad we don't even know where to start."

Given that the scale of damage is unprecedented, one can only imagine the effects will be as well – and here is where New York's capacity as a "resilient city" will be tested. "Resiliency", curiously, is a word that has only recently been paired in earnest with transportation, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. As a report from the Gulf Coast Research Center for Evacuation and Transportation Resiliency notes:

"We define transportation resiliency as a system's ability to function before, during, and after major disruptions through reliance upon multiple mobility options."

Given that I haven't left my house, except to walk with others and gawk at the rising banks of the Gowanus Canal, it's difficult to talk about mobility. At the moment, I have as much mobility as I need. Not for the first time, I am fielding calls from relatives in the suburbs who sit without power – and who, in the past, have suffered from impassable roads – while my life proceeds with a curious semi-normality. For those more severely affected, as in nearby Red Hook, I am heartened to see that, per Solnit's thesis, that the bottom-up, community spirit seems to be emerging: this morning, the owner of the Red Hook coffee shop where I sometimes work was petitioning, via Twitter, his fellow merchants for a community clean-up effort.

But while community may be local, transportation is not. Jane Jacob's block-level textures are to be prized, but they do not provide the framework for thinking about the complex and interconnected transportation networks of a mega-region. In these early days, as the full impact of Sandy is made clear, there's a few things to think about. One is that crisis, as the old saw goes, brings both danger and opportunity. The collapse of the West Side Highway in New York City in the 1970s was predicted to bring traffic chaos; instead, it helped lead to a revitalized waterfront. The events of 9/11 brought changes in emergency response that no doubt benefitted us these last few days.

Another point to consider is that the sort of recommended measures that have emerged in the "transportation resiliency" discussions, in terms of natural and other disasters, are what we really should be striving for in cities to begin with – things like communication technology. Being able to communicate to people what are the best available transportation options, in real-time.

Or take flexibility: if a water-deluged subway system is knocked out for a week, here's where the value of a comprehensive bus rapid-transit system – the kind with its own traffic-free lanes and special signals – becomes clear. Taxi capacity stretched? Here's where the bike-share system – and bike infrastructure in general – looks good.

Coincidentally, for a magazine feature I have been working on, I have been spending time with the logistics director of the New York City Marathon, an event of massive (if not quite Olympian) complexity and size. It is in itself like an exercise in moving people most safely and efficiently en masse – a process that, as it turns out, has been vastly improved by a novel use of yet another mode: the city's ferry network.

When I called him on Tuesday, he was busy dealing with a torrent of obstacles Sandy had thrown in his wake. But, just as after 11 September 2001, he told me, the marathon will go on next Sunday, 4 November. It is as resilient as the city that is its venue.